SPAIN'S oldest woman and the second-oldest in Europe turns 115 today (Saturday), but 'does not look it', according to staff at the Barcelona nursing home where she lives.
Ana Vela Rubio is not up to having a party, but will probably see her only surviving daughter, who is 89 and lives nearby, albeit her own health is somewhat precarious.
Normally, Ana's daughter would give a statement to the press every year on her mum's birthday, but this year she does not feel up to it.
Ana herself has never, not since she was born on October 29, 1901, been ill – not even the common cold, says David González, director of the La Verneda home for the elderly in Barcelona, which has around 80 permanent residents, 30 who attend daily and another 1,200 who have warden-assisted apartments on the complex.
A seamstress who left school at around the age of 11, Ana Vela was born in Puente Genil (Córdoba province) and moved to Catalunya in the 1940s.
Here, she started working as a seamstress in a tuberculosis hospital in Terrassa (Barcelona province).
Aged 104, she started going to the La Vereda home on a day-centre basis, but still lived in her own home.
She was 109 when she moved into the nursing home, which said it would celebrate today with a 'close-knit' and 'private' ceremony among staff, but says Ana Vela can no longer walk and has lost her cognitive faculties.
Despite this, she is not bed-ridden, but the carers get her up every day at 10.00 and put her in her wheelchair.
She eats liquidised food, as many of the other residents do, but 'eats very well', says González.
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